Westminstenders: From Russia with Love

[RedToothBrush]

Things just got scary.

The colony of US puppet state or a vassel state of the EU?

Why not just let market forces take their course and let Russia buy the UK?

How did we get to stories of spies and mafia who buy politicians?

Just who are our enemies and allies?

Won't someone think of the effect on house prices in Salisbury?

Try not to don your foil hat, brace yourself and resist shouting 'money laundering too loud'.

More turbulence ahead.

Brexit still seems like such a cracking idea doesn't it?

Who’s talking war? And if you compare economic sanctions (like the magnitsky act which targets individuals) with chemical weapons, which seems more hostile to you?

I'm not saying we rush into a conflict at all!

Where exactly have I said anything like that?

Corbyn could easily say that yeah ok there is a problem here, but I disagree with the methods / steps we take to deal with that.

He hasn't. Not even close.

Why not?

Instead he bring in to question who might have done it. He undermines what makes us a democracy, by going for its institutions in an act of whataboutery and making up straw men.

Its as bad as 'enemies of the people' on the front of the Daily Mail.

You can absolutely be critical of the government. Its a democracy. Its the job of the opposition.

The issue is that Corbyn isn't doing that. He's going further than that in criticising institutions for no obvious reason, but to score political points and for his own political advantage. This is what aligns him to Putin. That's simply dangerous. It has consequences.

If you can't see the difference, then you don't understand the glue which holds democracy together. It is more fragile than we give it credit for.

If I don't criticise Corbyn for the same things that I see May, Farage and Banks being guilty of, then I'm not defending the principles that I think most important of all.

Look I stick to my guns as far as Russia goes. Yes they probably did do it but probably is not definitely and I don't know how you justify sanctions or whatever without definite proof. I'm going to be stubborn over this point, sorry!

Be back later got to pick dd up from work.

I suppose it's been a while since we've had a different strawman.

What proof would you need to believe it?

And Corbyn is pro brexit, one can see that clearly now.
He is not democratic. He is not representing the vast majority of remain labour and women, and he's just blown it. Big time. Labour's losing members; it's time to send him back to his allotment.

The Independent @Independent
Robert Mueller issues subpoena to Trump Organization ‘demanding documents relating to Russia’

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/mueller-subpoena-trump-organization-documents-russia-a8258126.html
Mueller issues subpoena to Trump Organization 'demanding documents relating to Russia'
The exact scope of the subpoena is unknown at this time, but Mr Mueller requested documents related to Russia

Well, that's a developing story...

Forget Brexit, it’s the radioactive dead cat we’ll have to protect ourselves against

GeorgeMonbiot
@GeorgeMonbiot
A peaceful, constructive and useful form of retaliation against the Russian government? Shut down money laundering in the City of London.

I'm glad someone up thread quoted the replies by the chemicals scientists
Saved my BP.
There has been a lot of bollocks about demanding 100% proof; that rarely exists-in chemistry or biology (nor generally in courts)
Such demands are generally made by people with very little knowledge or understanding of how science works.

Backing down and doing nothing about Putin is as risky as over-reacting

Putin should have been warned off before
but he wasn't, hence this series of deaths

Putin will know he can do as he likes , so he'll just keep on poking Britain,
ordering more of these "NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) assassinations"
ramping up the severity of the attacks and the reckless disregard for bystanders

Sooner or later, an attack could kill several random people, just wrong place, wrong time.
In that event, the govt might be forced by a furious public into much more severe action than sanctions

Sanctions, applied sensibly with allies, can be a means of heading off war
of applying pressure to change dangerous and illegal behaviour

Red, I read his response on guardian, seemed sensible enough. If Russia was behind it, we should impose more financial sanctions. I would want to have back up for gas at least though.

We should use the same strategy as when the former USSR murdered spies & dissidents in the West.

The West did win the Cold War, remember, because the USSR economy collapsed unser the strain of all the combined pressures.
It takes determination, calm, patience - results take years, so don't expect e.g. a dramatic mea culpa by Putin, or the oligarchs bumping him off - not yet nywy

What works.:

Expulsions of spies and dubious business people
Applying existing HMRC tax & investigative powers to Russian money lodged in the UK, nit just the people
Increased sanctions, making life less pleasant for the Russian oligarchs on whom Putin depends
Involving the International Court of Justice at the Hague, who have previously hammered rogue government & military leaders who break international law.

Cancel brexit

That'll piss putin off

He paid good money for it

I'm sure I read somewhere that Hitler (sorry to bring him into it) had said that if the other European powers had shown more of a reaction when he took the Rhineland then he wouldn't have been able to go for the Sudetenland - he wouldn't have gone into Poland and - well...

everything could have been over by 1936.

But we let him get away with it and it emboldened him to do more and more until he got his all out war.
Of course at the time - the powers that be thought they were averting conflict by turning a blind eye.

Sometimes you really do need to kick up a stink and nip certain behaviours in the bud. If we insist on 100% (unobtainable) proof before trying to sanction Russia then it really might escalate to a much greater extent than it would if we took some kind of action right now.

We have a would be murderer running around leafy english towns with a chemical weapon that nearly killed a copper.

Describe what a measured response to that is, if its not what May is doing?

Imagine what would be going on if an Islamic terrorist had gunned down a senior british civil servant, his daughter and a copper in broad daylight in Salisbury.

What reaction would there be and what we expect politicians to say/do?

Honestly, I think May would have to go a fair way here to start looking like she was acting in a disproportionate manner towards Russia.

This is extremely diplomatic all things considered.

What is Corbyn suggesting is wrong with the approach? May CAN NOT wait for irrefutable evidence beyond the doubt of every person out there. Politically impossible. Corbyn even as opposition leader should acknowledge that reality - to stop public panic. The seriousness of the incident demands May do something, is seen in control of it and has enough intelligence of who is responsible for it.

This is on British soil. For that reason alone, comparisons with Iraq start to wear thin very quickly.

I can't see the Tories returning their thousands from Russian oligarchs or stopping the money laundering in London. Until this happens, the cynic in me thinks the government's response is to distract the public from Brexit and to boost the appeal of Theresa May.

Violet, I think the cynic in you is right that it will be used like that and about the money but as I say, given the nature of attack, May can't do nothing either. There is an unavoidable political reality here too.

Jeremy Vine said something that made me think yesterday , he was discussing the poisoned Russian situation and he was reading out comments from listeners , a couple of whom had alluded to us going to or being at or the potential possibility of war with Russia and he said why are people making that jump ? And I thought yes why are people making that jump ?
The other thing that peaked my interest , a report on R4 today talking about the 23 diplomats being expelled , except they called them Russian agents . I thought hang on , if you knew they were Russian agents then how come you haven't sent them home sooner ?

I thought she would do nothing so I’m pleasantly surprised she’s taken a stand (not declared war, not threatened nuclear missiles, not putting boots on the ground, just to be clear).

I am now contending with the fear/realisation that had she done nothing, people would have agreed with her and not cared. If she gets backlash for this, what’s the incentive to keep going with deterring further attacks? (Again, not with firepower or declarations of war)

I appreciate that what has happened is a very bad thing indeed , but I cant get worked up about it, I feel immensely sorry for those that have been affected, I don't think what has happened is necessarily unexpected though.

It's not just this though. Putin has stolen money from the Russian and has stashed it across the world, making politicians more beholden to him than the people they are meant to serve. To let this go unchallenged would only signal a willingness to be even more explicit about permitting him to carry on and abandoning the merest pretense that he might face consequences for his interference (which in this instance was an attempted murder meant to silence other dissidents from speaking out).

The journalists, political opponents, whistleblowers who have all been threatened and sometimes murdered are a product of this corruption. Surely if we don't care when it happens elsewhere (and I hope we do) we at least draw the line when it happens on British soil?

Am multitasking so apologies if that's garbled and incoherent

this is undergraduate chemistry once you have the method - yes stuff like HF and the precursors are nasty but you don't need robots and automation - just best practice. In the 80s it was felt that any country manufacturing fertiliser had the potential to manufacture nerve agents.

but:
These are binary agents, designed to be combined in the field if necessary, the agent itself wouldn't be in storage, it would be the components. I don't know what kind of shelf life these would have - certainly the intention when these were designed was for safe handling and longevity.
ie unless Porton state the components must have been made recently then you can't actually rule out non-Russian state actors obtaining this from dodgy quartermasters etc.

However if you posit this:
a) what was the motive - its too near the election to do anything other than benefit putin. Would you gamble on sanctions/retaliation going for putin's money? in contrast putin's motive has been fairly consistent - pour encourager les autres.

b) For these motives both putin and other actors would have to be confident the agent would be detected and identified - these things do degrade relatively quickly and would be unlikely to be identified in a normal autopsy - father and daughter found together early did guarantee a deep analysis - so that doesn't point to a specific actor.

c) The downside for 'other' actors is that they would have both Russia and the west looking for them - putin could not afford to have enemies wandering around with stocks of this stuff - it could just as easily be deployed against his friends - the fact that Russia hasn't expressed any urgency/offers of help in searching for the perpetrators feels like the smoking gun.

d) The downside for putin is minimal - he probably feels his money is untraceable and there ain't no real sanctions left - plus the use of the agent allows credible deniability, especially compared to the use of eg polonium.

so, sorry JC, there isn't really anything pointing to anyone other than putin?